by Rob Buckman
“From the look and smell, I guess you haven’t taken a bath in a very long time.” Decker smiled to soften his words. Jackie looked abashed and nodded.
“Alpha team found a pool just down river. It’s not much, just a trickle, but enough to clean off in and wash those clothes.” Jackie hefted the shotgun and looked around.
“I know what you’re thinking and feeling, Jackie, and I don’t blame you, but look at it this way. Any number of the girls could have grabbed you last night while you were asleep or this morning. No one here wants to hurt you, enslave you, or do anything to you don’t want to do. You want to stay here when we leave this evening that’s okay with me.”
“What… what if we want to go with you?” She asked hesitantly. Decker pursed his lips as if thinking about it.
“That might be a problem.”
“How so?”
“You keeping-up with the rest of the girls for one, and learning to take orders even if you don’t want to.”
“We can keep up, honest, and… and I can take orders.” She didn’t sound very convincing, but then again what teenager liked taking order from their parents or other adults.
“I’ll think about it. Let's go get you cleaned up and wash those damn clothes. You stink.” Jackie blushed.
Almost an hour later, all the kids were returned to their little camp, all looking bright and shiny and their clothes reasonably clean. A quick wash and lay out in a patch of sunlight didn’t take long to dry them. The girls provided more food for them to eat at lunchtime but other than that, they were left alone. Joann came back later and sat down across from them on the other side of the dead fire, with a sad look on her face.
“We’ll be taking off in a couple of hours.”
“Are we going with you?” The little blond asked hopefully.
“Don’t know. Wolfman hasn’t made up his mind. Said you’d probably be more trouble than you’re worth.”
“How come! We can keep up.” Jackie answered belligerently. Joann looked at her, seeing a kid, even those she was only slightly older than Jackie was. She could now see what Decker must have seen when he first saw them.
“It’s not just a question of keeping up. It’s a question of taking orders and doing what you are told by Wolfman, and your team leader.”
“I… we can do that.” Jackie snapped.
“Can you? Can you kill another human being for no other reason than he, or she threatens the team?”
“What… what do you mean?”
“There are a lot of bad people out there as you probably know. Unlike you, we don’t hide or run away, we take them down, hard if they get in our way or threaten us.”
“Have… have you killed anyone?” Amy asked. Joann nodded, a bleak look on her face. It wasn’t age that made the difference between them, it was experience. She’d killed in the most personal way possible, with a knife, up close where she got the other person’s blood all over her. She had no illusions after that, and what she’d seen inside the alien base. She was no longer the innocent airhead she’d once been. As Decker had said, learn to survive, or lay down and die.
“If you come with us, you’ll have to learn that there is no second guessing if you want to survive. Where possible we try to avoid people, but if we can’t we do what has to be done.”
“What about the aliens?”
“We avoid them mostly, but we did take down one of their bases a few miles back. It wasn’t pretty and you don’t want to know what they do to humans they round up.” Even now, Joann shivered thinking of the scene inside the breeding shed. They’d learn eventually, but for now, she let them hold onto the last bit of their innocence.
“Will we stay together?”
“Sort of. You’ll be with Echo team in the center, but each of you will be with one or two adults. You’ll have to do exactly what they say without questions or back talk.” Jackie pulled a face.
“Bad enough with my parents around telling me what to do all the time.”
“Yeah, me to. For a while I was glad they weren’t around… until I realized they would never come back, never hold me or hug me again.” Joann shook her head to clear away the wetness in her eyes.
“Oh.” Jackie muttered.
“Yeah, it’s tough, but what they tell you might just save your life.” They sat there chatting for an hour or so until sundown, when Joann’s TAC set crackled to life.
“You’re on point tonight, Joann.”
“Ten-four - on my way.” She stood and put her ruck on, shaking it in place and listening for anything that rattle before putting the ghillie suit on. All was good, and unslinging her rifle, she touched the brim of her helmet and took off between the trees. As she did, Decker walked up.
“Crunch time, kids. You want to go with us or not?” They all looked at Jackie.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Then get to knowing. I either want you with us or not, and don’t think about following us.”
“Oh.” That was exactly what Jackie was thinking.
“Several of the girls will take each of you with them, and I’m putting you with Sergeant Major Grace Lowery, Jackie. You’ll like her, she's as tough as you think you are.”
“Oh… okay.”
“When was the last time you cleaned that shotgun, or had any ammo for it?”
“What… how did you know I didn’t have any more ammo?”
“It’s my job to know. Bet you don’t even know how to strip and clean it, do you?” Jackie shook her head. “Don’t worry, Grace will teach you, and find a few shells for that cannon.”
As the sun set below the mountains, the Pack loaded up and moved out, with the kids spread out between them. It wasn’t hard to find girls willing to take them, as several volunteered, so Decker knew they’d be well looked after. With the forward scouts way out-front and Alpha team following, the pack moved steadily eastward under the trees towards the town of Canebrake, and made good time until the forward scouts ran into trouble just before town.
Margery Cumming muttered a curse, realizing she’d screwed up. Under the trees, she hadn’t felt the need to switch on the active cammo, and paid the price for the oversight.
“Freeze, or I’ll drop you!” An unseen voice commanded. Marge froze, as did the other three members of her team, but they kept their weapons up and ready.
“Where do you think you’re going, tinker bell?” Someone asked out of the darkness. Even with the night vision on, all she could see were trees, so whoever it was had night vision and was staying out of sight.
“Nowhere, just passing through.” She answered.
“Well I’ll be damned! Drop your weapon, bitch!”
“Like hell I will!” As if on cue, ten figures appeared from behind trees, all wearing old-fashioned night vision headsets that made them look like a one-eyed Cyclops. Apparently, it didn't occur to these geniuses that the girls could also see in the dark just as well as they could. Probably because they'd never seen the latest Spec. Ops. helmets with the built in night-vision equipment.
“We can see you, bitch, so drop your weapons before we drop you.” Four against ten weren’t good odds, but Marge had an edge they didn’t know about, the alien body armor. One of the men stepped closer, assuming wrongly, they could only dimly see him in the gloom, and pointed a 12-gage shotgun at Marge. He stopped when Marge lifted her weapon and pointed straight at him.
“You think you can take all of us, bitch?”
“Don’t have to, I’ll take you first and worry about the rest after.” From the expression on the leaders’ face, this wasn’t going the way it was supposed to. When you had someone surrounded, and had the drop on them, most people opted to surrender rather than risk being killed. Then again, Marge and her forward scout team weren’t ordinary people. She just wished she could hit the radio button and warn the Pack, but she dare not take her hand off her weapon.
“If you want to shoot me, you first have to switch the safety off.” Margery commented. It wa
s an old trick to make the other person hesitate and wonder if the safety was on or not.
“That old trick. Don’t have too, the safety is off.” The man sneered. No sooner had he said it than he fired the shotgun. The impact of nine 00 buck slamming into her chest made Marge take a step back, more in surprise than anything else but it didn’t stop her pulling the trigger. Her first three shots were high, and she quickly corrected so the next three took the man in the upper chest and the face. By then all her team followed suit and opened fire, seeing the look of shock on their attacker's faces as the girl refused to go down, even after taking a hit point blank in the upper torso.
“Retreat!” Marge yelled, seeing Wendy Williams go down as she took a round in the leg. The few surviving men also retreated behind the protection of the trees, yelling their heads off.
“We need help here!” That meant they had reinforcements nearby. Marge grabbed Wendy under the arm and pulled her backwards while sending three round burst into the trees, to keep the men’s heads down.
“Get back to the pack and tell them what’s happening. I’ll hold them off until they arrive.”
“Why not use the radio?”
“Can’t, they might be monitoring the frequency.” Without a word, the other two took off running, while Marge dragged Wendy to a clump of thick trees. The moment they reached relative safety, both reloaded and settled down into a firing position. They popped off a few rounds at anyone who stuck their head out, but couldn’t tell if they got a hit or not.
“Give it up lady, you don’t have anywhere to go, and there’s more of us than you.”
“Kiss my ass, dickhead.”
“Oh, I’ll be doing more than just kissing your ass, bitch.” At that, a lot of weapons opened fire, pouring a barrage of rounds into the trees. All Marge and Wendy could do was keep their heads down.
“Shit! There has to be a hundred of them out there.”
“Alpha team leader to Scout Team Leader - Keep your heads down - the Pack is moving into position to surround these assholes.”
“Ten-four - how long?”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“Ten-Four.” She answered, starting to shake as the combat shock hit her.
“You okay, Marge?”
“Yeah, just the shakes is all. I’ll be okay.”
“You and me both.” She felt Wendy trembling as well. The shooting slowed down to probing shots, designed to keep their heads down while the gang moved in closer.
“Go for bloopers!” Decker called on the TAC, and Marge heard the odd ‘bloop’ sound of the under-barrel grenade launchers letting go. That was something the bad guys hadn’t expected, as warheads began exploding in the trees among them. Those that could, got up and ran, only to run into nasty shit coming the other way, from bullets to arrows from longbows and crossbows, and one by one they went down. The firefight lasted ten minutes before it was all over, except for the moaning and cries of the wounded, but those didn’t last long as the girls didn’t show any mercy, killing them all.
“Alpha team leader to Wolfman.”
“Wolfman go!”
“We have their base… a farmhouse under surveillance, and from what we can see there’s about ten or so inside, and they have prisoners.”
“Shit! Just what we need - hold what you have until we get there.”
“Ten-four.”
“Echo team, strip the bodies of any weapons, ammo, and anything useful, and move out behind me - Bravo and Charley teams on me.” Decker didn’t wait for a reply. They knew what to do. His helmet ‘pinged’ the position of Alpha Team, as he dogtrotted to their position. Hopping over what he thought was a ditch, he skidded to a halt and walked back. It wasn’t a ditch, but a crudely dug trench.
“Fucking assholes!” He muttered, seeing about a dozen bodies, all men, stripped naked and casually dumped into the trench as if they were so much garbage.
“Time to do a little house cleaning, girls.”
“Ten-four Wolfman.”
Decker moved up to a position where he could see the farmhouse. This new gang of assholes were holed up inside the house, a few hundred feet off Highway 178, and well concealed from view behind a thick screen of trees. Somewhere they’d found or stolen a bunch of cammo netting and strung it over the cleared area in front of the main farmhouse. That gave them more freedom to move around during the daylight hours without the fear of being spotted by the alien aircraft. Smart move on someone’s part. The question was, should he try to free the prisoners, or just leave them and take off up the road with the pack. He moved up beside Krista Jackson and got her report. Decker let out a sigh and shook his head.
“Why the hell did I have to become a fucking sheepdog.” He muttered, hearing Krista laugh.
“Life’s a bitch, that’s for sure. Now it looks as if you’ll have a few more bitches for your team.”
“Christ on a fucking crutch! I’ll have half the bloody human race in this pack before we get to ‘Norden’ at this rate, and all female.” That made Krista laugh even harder.
“Poor Wolfman, all those lovely ladies and not one in your bed.” She tutted sympathetically.
“You’re a lot of help, you know that Krista.” He grumbled.
“You only have to ask, my man, and there’d be any number of ladies who’d warm your sleeping bag.”
“And then what?” Krista thought about it for a second and shook her head.
“You’re right, you’re screwed.”
“When I was serving in the Royal Marines there was this old wives tale that the army put Bromide in our tea and coffee to stop us screwing every girl within a hundred miles.”
“Did they?”
“Don’t know!”
“Thought not.”
“What’s your point?”
“I wish Doc Mason had Bromide in her backpack right now.” She laughed. Decker shot her a look. He hadn’t thought about it before, but he guessed the women get horny as well.
“What now?”
“I’m going to go in and take a good look at what we’ve dealing with. Hold everyone here till I get back.”
“Ten-Four.” Krista knew better than to try and stop him. Decker was the master, and even though he was the Pack leader, he wasn't about to ask someone else to do something like this.
The bad guys inside must have known something was happening, as all the lights in the house went out, which was so much better from Decker’s point of view. Turning his active cammo on and pulling netting down over his face, he began his stalk up to the house. Even with night-vision equipment, if he moved slow and easy and used every bit of cover, the perps inside the house wouldn’t see him coming. The lazy bastards hadn’t bothered cleaning up the yard, and there were plenty of boxes, large logs, and small shrubs around the edge for him to creep up unseen. Once he reached the wall of the house, he slowly worked his way along the front to the window, not that there was much to see inside the darken house. For a moment, a face appeared at the window, as one of the men inside checked this part of the yard. For a second Decker thought of shooting him anyway, just on principal for being stupid enough to put his face to the window. He changed his mind, as it would only tell the people inside where he was, and put them on notice that someone was out here, and close. Darkness and the active cammo was his friend, and if he could get inside the house, he could probably take them all down, and not risk any of the girl’s lives. Sliding sideways, he reached the front door, but as he reached for the handle, the door slowly opened. Decker pulled back, and dropping his rifle on to its sling, he pulled his silenced 9 mm out and leaned back against the wall, breathing softly, heart pounding. First came the barrel of a weapon, an AK-47 by the look of it, then a man poked his head out for a quick look. Seeing nothing threatening, he stepped out, pulling a naked girl with him, followed a moment later by a second man, also carrying and AK.
“Who’s ever out there, listen up. You try to come in and we’ll shoot the rest of the bitches in here, just li
ke this one.” Saying that, he pushed the girl out in front of him and put the barrel of the AK to the back of her head. He never got the chance to pull the trigger as the .230-grain 9 mm bullet traveling at approximately 1,230 feet per second passed through his brain. The second man only managed to register the soft 'fussz' sound of the first shot, before his brain turned to mush, as a second bullet passed through it.
“Run girl!” Decker snapped. The girl looked around and saw nothing, except the two dead men on the ground. She didn’t need any urging, and took off running across the yard. Decker knew the girls would catch and take care of her, dismissing her from his mind as he slipped through the open doorway. For a moment, he stood in the pitch-black darkness to settle his nerves and slow his breathing. He could still see reasonably well, and crouching down, he shuffled down the short hallway to the first room, the one he’d seen the man peeking out of.
“Shit! Where did Mac and Terry go?” A gruff voice asked in a loud whisper.
“How the hell should I know… they were there a second ago?”A second, whiny voice asked in the gloom. “Can’t see them… you think they bugged out?”
“Go look, for fuck sake.” Decker slipped the Glock back into its holster, and pulled his knife. In the confines of the house, and with so little noise, even the sound of the ‘silenced’ Glock could be heard. Standing, he moved back down the hallway a few steps and waited for the man to come to him. The man wasn't wearing night vision optics, and had to fumble his way to the front door, that was until his hand touched Decker.
“Is that you, Mac… where’s Terry?"
“Both dead, asshole.” Decker whispered as he slipped the knife in below the rib cage, thrusting upward into the man’s heart. With Decker’s hand clamped over his mouth, only a gurgle escaped his lips as he went onto tiptoe to escape the pain in his chest. Decker felt hot blood run over his hand, but it no longer bothered him as it once had. This guy deserved to die, and he had little mercy for anyone in here except the captives. Lowering the dead man gently to the floor to make as little sound as possible, he continued on into the room, banking on the second man thinking his buddy was coming back if he heard anything. He was right.